Today, find out which students have won a $5,000 scholarship for using social media creatively to celebrate the First Amendment through the #FreeToTweet scholarship competition.

More than 17,000 messages with the #FreetoTweet hashtag flooded Twitter and other social media on Dec. 15, sent by people sharing how they enjoy their right to free expression. The competition was part of a celebration of the 220th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Students ages 14 to 22 who tweeted their appreciation for the First Amendment using the hashtag were automatically entered into the competition. Here’s a sample of a winning tweet from 20-year old University of Albany student Nicholas Creegan:

“Silence might be golden, but silence never got much done in a democracy. Speak now or don’t complain later. #FreeToTweet”

For the full list of winners, visit 1forall.us/winners. Follow @forallus on Twitter, where the winning messages will be tweeted  – one an an hour – with the hashtag #FreeToTweet. The scholarship entries were judged by a panel of First Amendment and journalism experts. They were funded by Knight Foundation and coordinated by the First Amendment Center and the American Society of News Editors. Today’s announcement of the competition’s winners falls on the 261st birthday of James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights. The #FreeToTweet campaign was built on the findings of Knight Foundation’s study, “Future of the First Amendment,” which looked at the role social media plays in shaping young people’s sense of First Amendment principles. The results suggested that social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter can play an important, supplemental role in the classroom. To help better prepare teacher’s to use social media in the classroom, Knight and The First Amendment Center launched a teacher’s guide for using social media to teach about the First Amendment.